That is because Senator Lambie, one of 12 Tasmanian senators, is a crossbencher. She was able to negotiate, as a condition of her support for the tax package, a commitment from the federal government to consider writing down at least a significant chunk of her state's social housing debt.

"If Senator Lambie can wipe the housing debt, which costs Tasmania $15 million each year, she'd no doubt be high up the list for a Christmas card from Tasmanian [housing] minister, Roger Jaensch," The Burnie Advocate said in it's editorial on Friday.

"She's found her way to make the most of her position within the political machine".

Lambie's coup, just two days into the life of the new parliament, prompted ACT Chief Minister, Andrew Barr, to revisit earlier and ongoing calls for Canberra's senate entitlement to be reviewed.

While he would not necessarily welcome the election of somebody quite as colourful as Ms Lambie to the Senate from the ACT, Mr Barr, like many Canberra politicians before him, is very aware this jurisdiction does not wield anything like the same influence in the upper house as the states.

This is because the ACT, like the Northern Territory, is only able to elect two senators. That watered down entitlement is, itself, a comparatively recent innovation. Up until 1975 Canberrans couldn't vote in senate elections at all.

"If there is to be any future expansion of the House of Representatives then a modest expansion of the Senate would best be delivered by some additional senators from the territories - possibly from two to four," Mr Barr said.

Because we are only entitled to elect two senators the ACT is doomed to return one Labor upper house member and one from the Coalition for the foreseeable future.

In the 2016 election Tasmanian senators only needed 26,090 votes. Katie Gallagher and Zed Seselja each needed to accrue 90,078 votes this time round.

Northern Territory senators, for the record needed a quota of about 37,000 votes while NSW upper house members had to reach more than 346,000 votes.

South Australia came in at just under the ACT with a requirement for 81,629 votes and Western Australia was slightly above at 105,091 votes.

Unlike state senators, ACT and Northern Territory senators only serve for the life of the parliament, or a maximum of three years.

Their state counterparts, on the other hand, are elected for six year terms.

While there is an argument the current Senate term is too long and should be brought into line with that for upper house members from the ACT and the Northern Territory, it is highly unlikely such a radical change would make it through the upper chamber.

Both of these issues are pertinent examples of the way in which Canberrans, whose Legislative Assembly cannot pass laws on issues such as euthanasia and same sex marriage, are denied democratic rights citizens of the states take for granted.

So long as we are only able to elect two senators the ACT will never have the bargaining power that crossbench senators can deliver.

Labor knows it has the Canberra vote in its pocket and, as such, doesn't have to do anything special for the ACT. The Liberals will always treat us the same way for the same reason.